Do we feel like we’re moving? Explorations on subjective social mobility in Argentina.

The Future of Social Mobility

José Rodríguez de la Fuente

Instituto de Investigaciones Gino Germani, Universidad de Buenos Aires, CONICET

2025-12-03

Introduction: Why Subjective Social Mobility?

Advances in the study of social (occupational) mobility

International (Hout & DiPrete, 2006):
- Social mobility shows a common pattern, but its strength varies across countries and over time.
- Education is the main factor driving both upward mobility and the intergenerational reproduction of status.

Latin America (Torche, 2015; Solís y Boado, 2016):
- High absolute rates of intergenerational class mobility, comparable to those in today’s industrialized countries.
- Upward mobility did not always translate into higher incomes.
- Overall social fluidity is similar to that of European countries.
- Weak link between inequality and mobility.

Social mobility in the stratification process

Source: based on Grusky (2008)

  • Mobility studies commonly focus on the relationship between origins and destinations (2).

  • It is often assumed that the relationship between positions and outcomes (1) is constant, even though it actually changes over time.

  • Economists simplified this issue by focusing directly on income mobility.

Why subjective social mobility? (I)

Diagnosis:

  • There is a gap between how sociology defines class or occupational mobility and how people understand “social mobility” in their everyday lives.

  • What do people understand as upward or downward mobility? Class? Income? Housing? Consumption? Education? Lifestyle?

Subjective social mobility:

  • Allows for addressing the multidimensionality of social mobility.

    • Captures a broader range of experiences.

    • Reflects a cognitive average of objective mobility trajectories.

    • Objective and subjective mobility do not always align.

  • Possible indicator of relative deprivation.

  • Is a better predictor of attitudes, behaviors, health, and well-being.

Why subjective social mobility? (II)

Methodology

Objectives and data sources

Objective: To explore the relationship between objective indicators of stratification (class and social mobility) and subjective mobility in Argentina.

Data sources:

  • Comparative Analysis: World Values Survey (WVS) and Latinobarómetro.

  • Argentina: National Survey on Argentina’s Social Structure and Equality Policies (ESAyPI, PIRC-ESA, 2024)

    • National, urban, probability-based sample
    • 1,500 individuals aged 18 and older.
  • Direct question (Qualitative)
    • Comparing your standard of living with your parents’ standard of living when they were about your age, would you say that you are better off, worse off or about the same?
  • Indirect question (Quantitative)
    • Difference between the subjective status scores of children and parents

Results

Subjective mobility in Latin America (I)

World Values Survey: direct question on subjective mobility

  • 4 out of 10 people report having improved compared to their parents
  • Venezuela, Argentina and Ecuador are the countries with the lowest levels of upward subjective mobility
  • Brazil, Peru, Mexico and Chile are the countries with the highest levels of upward subjective mobility

Subjective mobility in Latin America (II)

Latinobarómetro: indirect question on subjective mobility

  • 1 out of 4 people report having improved compared to their parents
  • Social reproduction predominates
  • Nicaragua, Colombia and Venezuela are the countries with the lowest levels of upward subjective mobility
  • Chile, Bolivia and Brazil are the countries with the highest levels of upward subjective mobility

Subjective mobility in Argentina (I). Cohorts

  • The proportion of people who report having experienced upward mobility is constant over time (except among the youngest)
  • What increases over time is the perception of social reproduction
  • A mix of generational and life-course effects

Subjective mobility in Argentina (II). Social class

Subjective mobility in Argentina (III). Objective social mobility

  • There is a partial correspondence between objective and subjective mobility.
  • When upward objective mobility is more intense, upward subjective mobility increases slightly.

Subjective mobility in Argentina (IV). Mobility explanations

  • Perceptions of upward mobility and social reproduction are mostly linked to individual or meritocratic views of progress, such as education, hard work, and ambition.
  • Perceptions of downward mobility, in contrast, are more strongly associated with structural or mixed explanations of the factors shaping progress, such as family background, collective organization, or corruption.

Determinants of subjective social mobility

Conclusions

Conclusions and next steps

Direct vs. indirect measurement:

  • The direct measure captures more upward mobility, while the indirect measure captures more reproduction and downward mobility.

Argentina:

  • Objective and subjective class positions correlate only weakly with subjective mobility.

  • Objective mobility does not necessarily translate into subjective mobility (status inconsistency / spurious mobility).

  • Evidence of a self-serving bias in causal attribution (Structural and merit-based factors).

Next steps:

  • Further develop subjective mobility measures in household surveys and assess how people situate themselves relative to their parents across multiple dimensions.

Thank you for your attention!

jrodriguez@conicet.gov.ar
https://github.com/joserodriguez86